When Paul Wolfe strapped himself in his Busch North Series racecars back in 2002, he knew he could compete with the top drivers in the series.

He owned and built his own cars that won poles at Nazareth and Dover, and finished sixth and second in those races, respectively.

Looking back on it a decade later, Wolfe had this candid analysis of himself as a driver:

“Some of the success I had as a driver was probably because my equipment at the time was probably superior to the guys I was racing,” he says. “I wasn’t aggressive enough, I would say. I always had to work on my own cars and build them and maybe I was less willing to take risks.”

The equipment. That was the one thing Martin Truex Jr. remembers about Wolfe when he drove against him back in those days of rubbing fenders in the Northeast.

“He was smart back then,” Truex says. “He built his own cars. Every time we went to the track, he had the nicest cars and he had some trick stuff on them too—he knows how to push the envelope.

“He was a pretty good (driver). He was really fast all the time but he ran into things a lot. His cars were always really beautiful cars and really nice. You could tell he knew what he was doing. And everything he has ever worked on since has been the same way.”

Wolfe still has the ability to oversee the building of impeccable racecars. That ability, combined with a racecar driver mentality that drives his decisions on race days, has turned into a combination that has Penske Racing’s Brad Keselowski on the brink of a Sprint Cup Series title.

If the 35-year-old Wolfe and the 28-year-old Keselowski don’t mess up this weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway, they will celebrate Sunday night by hoisting the Sprint Cup trophy.

Winning a championship—Keselowski owns a 20-point lead over Jimmie Johnson heading into this weekend’s season finale—will only enhance Wolfe’s reputation and status as one of the best crew chiefs in the garage.

Wolfe went from aspiring racer to Sprint Cup crew chief in a relatively short span, a trip where he landed great positions in some ways just because he needed a job.

His success as a driver in the Busch North Series allowed him to earn a partial deal racing in what is now NASCAR’s Nationwide Series. He finished 10th driving at Nashville in 2005 racing for Ray Evernham, but Evernham, who had assumed Wolfe’s driving contract when he bought the Nationwide team from Tommy Baldwin, couldn’t find sponsorship for Wolfe.

“He did a good job for me driving the racecar,” Evernham says. “But at that time, we were just trying so hard to keep everything going and it was all sponsor-related.

“The sponsor wanted to have our Cup guys (Kasey Kahne and Jeremy Mayfield) in the car. I tried to honor our things with Paul … but never could get a lot of interest behind him and I didn’t spend enough time with him.”

And like that, Wolfe’s racing career was over.

“At the end of 2005, I really needed to have a paycheck every week,” Wolfe says. “And driving wasn’t cutting it.”

Wolfe went to BAM Racing for a brief period before going to work for Armando Fitz, whom Wolfe had driven a handful of races for and needed a crew chief to build racecars for drivers in regional series.

He eventually began to crew chief in the Nationwide Series for Fitz’s rotating stable of drivers before moving to Braun Racing and then CJM Racing.

Needing a job as CJM was folding, Wolfe took the deal with Keselowski, a driver he didn’t necessarily like at the time but a Penske organization with incredible resources. Keselowski wanted him even though Wolfe had never won a race as a crew chief.

“He was a guy that (has always) outperformed his resources,” Keselowski says. “In this sport, excellence is defined by the media and the fans as those who win.

“Those who actually compete, define excellence as those who outperform their resources. … That’s what I saw in Paul.”

Wolfe and Keselowski soon formed a bond, and the two hard-core racers won immediately, riding a wave of six wins on their way to the 2010 Nationwide Series title.

Wolfe replaced Guy after the 2010 season, and Keselowski enjoyed a three-win season where he finished fifth in the standings.

They can attribute part of their success to great calls from the pit box, where Wolfe says he makes decisions more from a driver standpoint than an engineering standpoint. He can have all the data and still make a decision with his gut.

“Basically the only schooling I have is I graduated high school and went to a welding school in Ohio and from there I’ve just learned the sport from people around me,” Wolfe says.

“I don’t have an engineering background. I don’t pretend to. I don’t try to understand things I can’t understand. But the one thing I do know is how to go race.”

All along, he carried the philosophy instilled in him when he had started working for race teams as far back in the mid-1990s. He started at Joe Gibbs Racing in 1996 and remembers the influence of working under the guidance of mechanic Gordon Gibbs (no relation to Joe).

“At the time, I thought there were days I was about ready to quit. He was so hard on me on just how to build racecars and building them right and building them nice and all the detailed stuff,” Wolfe says.

“He probably instilled that in me how to build racecars. And to go along with that, the way I was brought up and my father raised me with discipline and all those things made me who I am.”

In just a few years, Wolfe has built a solid resume but most importantly has incredible respect in the garage.

“Everywhere he went, the car went faster,” says Evernham, considered one of the greatest crew chiefs of all-time with three titles with Jeff Gordon. “When he hooked up with Brad, I knew they would be a good combination. Career-wise, method-wise and thought-process-wise, I’m a big fan.

“Let’s face it. He and Brad are the only people, when the 48 (of Jimmie Johnson) is on, they have been the only people to take it to them in the last several years. I really appreciate what he does and I look back and think I wish I could have spent more time with him.”

Wolfe swears he doesn’t look back and wonder what could have been if the deal with Evernham had worked out.

“I try to put that behind me and just move on,” Wolfe says. “Everybody is kind of bitter at first, but I don’t know that if I had the opportunity tomorrow, I’d trade my job.

“I do enjoy driving some. … But I can’t say that I miss it or wish I was out there. There is never a time when I’m sitting on a pit box saying, ‘I wish that was me out there.’ That doesn’t even cross my mind.”

Evernham looks at Wolfe’s career as almost a parallel of his own. He sees a former driver who can think like a driver while also atop the pit box.

“He’s brilliant at coming up with alternative strategies,” Evernham said. “He seems to be a good team leader. … I got hurt in a racecar for a reason and that sent me down crew chiefing.